Heya. (: I own nothing you recognize. Rated T for slightly mature characters (not), inelegant language, and gratuitous (?) murder.

The idea for this was inspired by Berserker88's Nick Wilde: Ace Attorney, which drew me to the actual game and anime. It's a short but brilliant Zootopia fanfic so Zootopians out here should definitely go check it out. My only experience in law court stuff is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and I've done some research, but for the sake of not making this too boring, it was intentional that this is not a serious representation of how court trials work. It's merely a parody of a parody of Japanese law. I wrote this because I found Dan Cahill the perfect Phoenix Wright and Ian Kabra the PERFECT Miles Edgeworth (I could go on and on about how adorbs Edgey-wedgey was on the games, but that's not what you came here for). Plus I've been thinking of starring them both in a crime drama for a long time now.

I'm also so sorry for being a jerk and not being active on the archive. The reason I've been absent for some time now is that I've been busy working on a huge fic for another (dead) fandom, namely The Adventures of Puss in Boots cartoon series, (yeah i'm mature) and it behooves me to say that I just returned to writing for 39C again because I had to get over a major writer's block. So this is going to be a short story with a simple plot. I can't possibly write anything that's Ace-Attorney-level-complicated, so despite the bold title, no, this story isn't anywhere near worthy of being titled Ace Attorney. Sorry.

On the 39 Clues side of things, here's the fic. (:

Chapter 1: How to Adult

Detention Room
Thursday, May 3rd (9: 09 am)

"YOU IDIOT!"

It was a shriek that summoned a storm and slapped at his face and broke his heart, and at that moment all Hamilton Holt wanted was to break through that glass, reach out to his sister, and wipe those tears from her face and tell her no, no, Madison! Trust me, I—I didn't do it. I'm innocent. I'm innocent, I wouldn't—

I'd never—!

But she'd already turned away. She was not having any of this. His mother left him one last teary scowl before she pushed the sobbing Madison away in her wheelchair.

"Madison…Madison!" Ham pounded his fists against the glass, willing her to come back. It was, after all, all he could do.

But they didn't turn around.

It took several seconds before the sobbing faded off into the distant hallway. Stifling a sob himself, Hamilton slumped down his chair, his gaze blank. All his days spent in the detention room and treated like dirt by his own family was slowly beginning to take its toll on his very sanity.

"Ham…"

He snapped his misty gaze back at his other sister.

"You believe them, don't you?" He felt abandoned, alone, betrayed. His own family was all that he had, and even they had so unhesitatingly turned their backs to him. He was pretty much a dead man lying in his own coffin with nobody in the funeral house mourning the life he just lost.

Reagan bit her lip.

Hamilton clenched his fists.

"You believe I'm a murderer, don't you?"

It was a feat not to let his voice crack over murderer.

Reagan took a sharp inhale as if she herself was having trouble keeping the tears inside. She turned away, crossed her arms, and leaned against the post, doing her best to avoid his piercing stare.

It took her long seconds of silence before she finally sighed and told him the words she knew he wanted to hear.

"No, Ham. I believe you're innocent."

But this—this wasn't the joy he expected to feel after hearing that.

"That's a lie," he said, the dread in his heart growing and spreading and turning it black. He wanted to cry. "That's a lie…"

Hamilton could hear the crunch as she clenched her fists at the newspaper she held.

"It's just that…look, okay?" Reagan finally yielded. "You were drunk that night, you weren't thinking straight, you were at the scene of the crime, and you've got a solid witness against you. Any lawyer who would want to fight for your case would be an idiot. Your trial tomorrow's practically gonna be…"

He blinked at the stark white ceiling of his detention cell in a pathetic attempt to dispel the water that ached to pour. His throat hurt. That stupid lump was forming again.

He released a shaky breath as he covered his eyes with a palm, as if in exasperation.

He knew he wasn't fooling anyone though. Certainly not Reagan.

After some of the tears had trickled off down the skin on the side of his eyes, he spoke again.

"How...How's Dad?"

"Well." Reagan uncomfortably cleared her throat. "He's still mad."

He determinedly wiped off the mess from his face with the heel of his hand and he sat straighter in his chair. He locked his eyes on something that she held in her hand. "Let me see that."

"Huh?" She spared a glance at the newspaper she was holding and immediately shook her head. "No, Ham. Really, you don't have to—"

The look in his eyes was impossibly beseeching. "Please."

For a moment, she stood her ground. When it became clear that none of them intended to back down any time soon, she sighed. She was half-annoyed at his stubbornness, yet half-relieved that he even had that stubbornness. He'd gone through so much this week, and though he was falling apart, she is at least glad that he still struggled to hold himself together. At least he still had some will in him to fight, even if the case against him seemed so hopelessly lost. She walked over to him and held up the newspaper, letting him see the headline printed in screaming capitals and bold red.

OLYMPIC CHAMPION HOLT MURDERS KABRA IN WOMEN'S RESTROOM

She rolled it up before he could read any further. She cleared her throat and looked away, uncertain if she would be able to stand that helpless look in her brother's eyes.

Her big brother, who used to be so responsible, so optimistic—reduced to this, an alleged criminal, with nothing but the jail awaiting his future.

"The state will get you a lawyer if we can't get one today," she spluttered at the air. The only reason she ever even blurted out the obvious was because the silence was so unsettling it made her knees tremble.

Hamilton smiled bitterly as he sunk back into his seat. "It's fine. I mean, who knows, right? Maybe they could manage to get a brilliant lawyer who'd take this seriously." Who was he kidding. "If only Amy were still here, she'd…"

His eyes widened at that realization.

A lightbulb.

Reagan flashed him a confused look. "She'd what?"

A glimmer of hope. Just a glimmer, but it was worth chasing even the tiniest speck of light when the suffocating darkness was beginning to choke the life out of him.

He sat up straight. That tiny seed of stubbornness she'd glimpsed earlier had now noticeably grown into something greater.

"Dan. Dan. How could I forget?" If only his ankles hadn't been cuffed to the sides of his chair, Reagan knew he would've been pacing the room with his long legs, back and forth and back and forth. His hands gripped his blond bangs. "Didn't he just get out of law school recently?"

Reagan covered up her incredulousness with a cough. It showed how desperate they really were if they were even thinking about hiring that dweeb as their defence attorney.

"I…already called him, actually, but he refused."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me? Why did he refuse?! He's my good friend and he— "

"Is a rookie!" Reagan shook her head in disbelief. "This is a homicide case, not a parking violation—don't be an idiot, Ham. I want to get you out of this mess just as much as you do. But you need a freaking genius if you want to turn this case around!"

"Then we've got our man. Call him again."

And Reagan knew it was hopeless to fight Hamilton when he had that grim line of determination set in his mouth. When she swiftly left the detention room afterwards, she was half-livid at her brother for his stupidity—but the half-smile in her own lips indicated something else.

Hope.

Cahill and Co. Law Offices
Thursday, May 3rd (9: 15 am)

Nobody would believe Daniel Arthur Cahill was a defence attorney if he didn't thrust his lawyerly badge on their suspicious ugly faces.

Which was why while he was just sitting there, chilling with some coffee and perusing his giant newspapers, he was worrying more about how to pay this month's rent than how Speede Tech's new Speede9S laptop series was all the rage.

Huh. He turned his newspaper to the next was glad the media had had enough of that Kabra murder case—or at least, they weren't putting it on the front page anymore. He couldn't understand why everybody was so desperate for even the tiniest drops of murder drama. They weren't in a freaking Agatha Christie novel or something for Chrissakes. The whole world was acting like there was something suspicious about Holt's apparent murder when the entire case couldn't be any clearer.

He skipped the boring news parts of his giant broadsheet and flipped to the entertainment page. Yep, found it. Not able to care less about the gossips surrounding Jonah Wizard's three-month-long girlfriend (wow, that was a record!), he grabbed a pencil from his can of writing materials and settled in his seat, neatly spreading the broadsheet onto his desk, flattening it with his palms. He had a mission to fulfil, and that was to finish this crossword puzzle. He was going to make this puzzle yield before its master!

Not a bad way to slaughter this boredom.

He worked on it for the next fifteen minutes, and already the boredom was back with a vengeance, chewing at him and driving him mad. He slumped over his newspaper and groaned. He heard his pencil roll over and slip under the table. Not for the first time in his entire life, he cursed his short attention span. He prayed for a miracle—anything but this boredom! Yeah, well, he couldn't believe it too, how he'd reduced himself from a cool X-boxing-all-weekend guy to an old crossword-puzzle-solving geezer, but he was having enough trouble with rent. He couldn't afford to get his electric bills all over the place too.

He was just about to pick up his fallen pencil from under his professional-looking mahogany desk and get back to figuring out what the metal or plastic sheath over the end of a shoelace was called when the heavens took heed of his prayers and sent an angel knocking at his door.

"Dan!" The voice was muffled by the wooden door. "Open up! My hands are full over here!"

Hallelujah. He swept his desk clear of his papers and immediately got up, clambered for the door, and opened it for his friend, who was bringing a bag of burgers and a box of pizza with him.

Grinning, he stepped aside to let Atticus in his office. Dan then shut the door, one hand gripping his chest in mock melancholy.

"The boredom was killing me, Att. I was beginning to think you ditched me for some old dusty triangles in the desert."

"They're not old triangles in the desert," countered Atticus indignantly."They're the Pyramids of Giza!"

His young friend dumped the food on the mahogany desk and then threw his backpack on the floor. Dan rolled his eyes at the bulging backpack. Yeesh, what did he stuff in there, rocks?

Probably. His good ol' pal Atticus Rosenbloom had a morbid fascination with rocks—he says they were the witnesses of a global crime that still remained unsolved, and archaeologists had the crucial job of digging up the Earth's deepest, darkest secrets. When he wasn't trying to make his office a dumpsite for his stupid history books, Atticus was Dan's legal sidekick, his co-counsel, his Watson, his best friend. At seventeen years old, he knew how to read and write in the languages of old, a genius decipherer on his way to figuring out Linear A. Honestly, Dan wouldn't be too surprised if Atticus one day figured out the Voynich manuscript itself.

Atticus rummaged inside the paper bag for a burger, then jumped to the couch, already munching. Yep, the couch reserved usually for clients was now a couch reserved especially for Atticus Rosenbloom. Dan could smell the faint scent of feet, and when he looked, yep, Atticus had exposed his socks.

"Anyway," he said, acting like this was his home like usual and oblivious of Dan fanning the air over his nose, "I already saw them last year. I mean, I'd love love love to go again, but..." He leaned forward, wiggling his eyebrows. "I'd rather spend my free time being with my buddy, you know what I mean?"

Dan rolled his eyes.

"The only reason you didn't go with them was because you needed to study for your bar exams and you're using my office because you're a slimy little crook. How do you plead?"

Atticus smiled behind his thick aquarium glasses as he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. "Guilty."

"Very, very guilty." Dan tsk-tsked as he walked over to the food. "But I'll forgive you because you brought me some...alright! Pizza Hut!"

Atticus jumped at that. "Hey, of the two of us, you're the one with a job! You still owe me ten dollars and fifty—"

"Learn to let go of the past, Att," said Dan in a soothing voice. "What's this? Ooh, pepperoni and cheese." The tasty aroma of calories wafted into the room and Dan's nose so greedily ate it up, inhaling it like it was the scent of heaven. "You know me too well, my friend."

"Glad you like it." Atticus smirked and took one more bite of his burger before he placed it on the glass table in front of him. He pulled his backpack to him, unzipped it, and set up his books, ready to delve into his studies. He began flipping through the pages of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. As he skimmed through the pages of his book, he asked, "So, got any new client?"

Dan pulled up his own chair behind his mahogany desk. The first time he sat here with his newly-received attorney's badge, he felt like a professional. Fulfilled. An adult. He'd felt like he was a shiny new nickel. But now, he felt like…well, nothing. Nothing had changed, really. Being an adult didn't really mean being a fulfilled hero like the TV kept telling him in his younger years. He was the same dweeb he'd been in the past ten years. The media should be brought behind bars for committing perjury.

But maybe it was because he wasn't doing much of his job. Or his life, in general.

"Nope. No new client." He took a bite, and the next words to come out of his mouth were muffled."Do you think I'd be spending this day eating pizza if I did?"

Atticus paused in mid-flip of a page and looked up from his book to stare at his friend. "Yeah, right."

Dan returned his friend's gaze innocently. "What? They'll come if they need me."

Atticus sighed and put his book aside for a while. "Look, I know you're fresh out of law school, but if you want to grow, you have to get your butt off that chair and look for the job yourself! Print yourself some business cards. Go meet some big people. Get out of this office and into the big world. You can't stay cooped up here forever. You actually have to do something other than wait."

"I—" Ugh. He didn't understand. Dan Cahill did not like working. He liked videogames and playing out in the sun and teasing Amy for her ugly red hair. His fun, cool old childish self was destroyed by rent and electric bills and growing up. Adulting was so damn hard. He didn't know how Amy did it.

Before he could respond though, there was a ring on the telephone.

And before he could tell Atticus to get his dirty paws off that phone, he'd already snatched it from his desk and ran far away where Dan couldn't catch him.

"H-Hey! Att!"

"You've called the right place! This is Cahill and Co. Law Offices!" Wow, he's looking cheery. Atticus sent him a wink and a thumbs-up, mouthing, Don't worry, dude, I got your back.

Dan's face was flushed with fury and embarrassment, and he didn't know how he managed to hold the urge to flip him a finger.

Dammit, Atticus.

After failing to dissuade Atticus with verbal insults and threats, he gave up, climbed up his mahogany desk, professionalism be damned.

"Get off that phone!"

"Dan?"came a female voice from the receiver.

Atticus dodged just in time before his face got hit by crumpled newspaper ammo. "Oh, no, madam, it's Atticus Rosenbloom, Dan's dutiful assistant and his Watson to his Sherlock."

"ATTICUS!" That's so dumb even I can't appreciate it.

Apparently, the woman on the other end of the line thought so too. "O…kay…would you please get him on the line? Please?"

Atticus laughed as he ran around the room with an indignant Dan Cahill on pursuit. "No, you could tell me your case and the office would be honoured to accept it!"

There was a breathless pause on the other line. "R-Really? You'd…accept my case?"

Dan threw him another newspaper ball that ended up hitting the wall instead. "NO!"

"Yes, of course! It's a law office and that's what law offices are supposed to do—provide shelter for the defenceless!"

The woman on the other side sighed in relief. "Oh, thank you, thank you!"

"ATTICUS! GIVE ME THAT!"

The laughing young genius finally yielded as Dan snatched the telephone from him. He glared as Atticus sprawled himself on the couch, still hassled by spasms of laughter.

"Um…Mr Rosenbloom?"

Back to the woman on the telephone. "Right, he's an idiot."

There was a pause. "Dan? Is that…you? Oh, Dan! Oh, thank you, thank you so much for accepting my case!"

Dan suddenly reeled back in horror, almost even toppling over Amy's favourite vase in the process. This was her office before he went ahead and inherited it, after all.

"What?!" spluttered Dan,"N-NO! I won't accept it! I can't accept it! I—"

"What?!" blurted Atticus, aghast, "You were actively refusing clients?"

"What?! But your assistant said—"

"Look, Reagan," sighed Dan, "I know you thought there was a thing between us, and who can resist me, I know, I understand, but…"

He could feel the rage explode from the receiver and he had to pull away lest his eardrums burst forth. "TH-TH-THIS ISN'T ABOUT ANY OF THAT! Dan, don't be such a moron, I called you again not because I want you on the case, not really." Dan reeled back a bit. He knew he was the one who kept pushing his clients away, but okay, that stung. "I called again because Ham was the one who personally asked for you this time. We're running out of time. No one else wants to defend him—"

"And what kind of idiot would want to?"

"—every defence attorney we've talked to had turned us down—"

"And I'm your last resort. That's very flattering."

"—and you don't care about that?" she countered indignantly, "I see you're still an insensitive jerk."

"Well what do you want me to do? Accept your case only to lose? Ha! Keep dreamin', sister."

"See?! THAT'S the problem with you lawyers. All you care about is winning."

"It's a job, alright?! And look," he said,"I'm not God, in case you haven't noticed. I can't pull off a miracle and prove your brother innocent when he's clearly not."

"We don't need you to do a miracle," replied an indignant Reagan, though Dan had a feeling even she didn't seem so sure. "We...just need you to show everybody the truth—"

"Which is what you're completely missing," he parried, his patience ticking off. "No one's even taking the investigation seriously! I mean, the case against him is pretty solid already. Let the state give him his lawyer, I sure don't envy the poor guy." Which, of course, was a lie, but life was immensely easier that way.

"But he wants you!" she burst out, "I want you. To go up there in the court for him, I mean."

Dan burst out laughing. A minute ago she was screaming about how such a moron he was. "Why would he want me to defend him, really? Why would you?"

Reagan took a breath. "Because we believe in you."

"Whoa, whoops, we better cut the sap. See ya."

"And we'd want someone to believe in us!" she said, desperate."Please? Isn't this what you became a lawyer for? Amy would want you to take it!"

Heh. Well, Amy would have easily turned the case on its head.

"Well, sorry then, but I am not my sister."

"Good, because I believe I'm talking to Dan Cahill," she snapped back. After a pause, she said, her tone softened, "So you'd…you'd take the case?"

"Take it, Dan!" hissed Atticus, who'd been listening in earnest in their conversation the entire time. "Take it!"

Dan clapped the mouthpiece with a palm to hiss right back. "How am I supposed to defend someone who already clearly murdered Natalie Kabra?! If I go up in the court, it'd be me against the entire world!"

Atticus nudged his shoulder enticingly. "Not a bad way to slaughter your boredom, eh? Eh?"

Dan glared down at him. "Not a bad way to slaughter my dignity."

One more concern was that Hamilton Holt was an Olympic champion. If Dan defended him and lost, his reputation was gonna suffer.

"Well, so what?" Atticus shrugged."You'd rather spend your entire life solving crossword puzzles?"

"I'm practicing my right to refuse! Got any problem with that pal?!" He was aware that he was starting to sound like an insensitive jerk here, but dammit, he just wanted some peace and quiet."And I can refuse any damn case I wanna refuse! So butt off!"

There was a beat of silence.

"…alright. I've had enough of this." Atticus stepped up the couch so he could be a head taller than his friend and snap him out of whining like a child. He grabbed him by the collar, and just when Dan had spluttered "H-Hey—"

"Prove to me that the badge you're wearing isn't just some fancy piece of metal," snapped Atticus, his brown gaze intense, boring so deeply into his soul that Dan might have been freaked out by this outburst just a little. "Prove to me you deserve this office and that mahogany desk and that you're even worth your salt. Prove it to me, pal." He began shaking him, "Prove it! SHOW ME YOU'RE AN ATTORNEY!"

Dan stared at his friend for one more moment before deciding that okay, Atticus did have a point. If he understood anything from what Atticus just said, Dan was in desperate need to make money, because if he doesn't pay his rent soon, he'll end up being homeless.

Poker-faced, he wordlessly backed away from Atticus, making the boy release his collar from the grip of his fingers. With his two hands occupied from holding on the telephone, he couldn't run his hands through his dirty blonde hair in a show of extreme distress. So he simply walked to the side of the couch, stood before the wall, and slammed his forehead against the cold hard concrete.

"Uggggghhh."

Atticus may be an expert on Sanskrit and Linear A and Egyptian hieroglyphs, but not one cryptologist in the entire world could defeat his mastery of Dan-speak. "YES! I knew you'd agree!"

Reagan cleared her throat, the silent spectator finally making it known that she'd been listening this whole time. "So…"

Atticus was looking at him expectantly. Dan opened his mouth. Then closed it.

Then opened it again. "Nope. Still not taking the case."

Atticus looked like a child denied his Christmas present. "NOOOO! But Dan!"

"But Dan—"

"I WAS JUST FREAKING KIDDING!" Dan set down the body of the telephone on his desk and ran his free hand down his face in exasperation. "You two are so tense."

It took several moments for it to register. Finally, both Reagan and Atticus sighed in overjoyed relief.

"Yes! Yes!" Atticus was jumping in the air and pumping his fists. "I knew you'd take it! Your first trial, coming right up!"

Dan shook his head as Atticus began whooping and running around the office doing his victory dance.

"I guess I'm taking it," sighed Dan to the telephone, already sounding defeated when the true battle hadn't even begun yet. "When's the trial?"

He could hear the relief in her smile through her words. "You really meant it, then. For a moment, I was afraid that you'd—"

"You're making me take it back."

"What? No! I'm just…happy. Okay. Right down to business I guess." Reagan's happiness was sunlight streaming through the receiver, and Dan found it hard not to let slip a smile himself. "The trial's tomorrow," she said. "We'll talk the details down there in your office—I already have the letter with me."

T-Tomorrow?! Dan was already beginning to regret his decision, but for some reason, his outward physical body continued to act cool as if taking on murder trials was something he did everyday.

"Uh-huh. What letter?"

"The letter requesting you to be Ham's lawyer, dimwit. Save some pizza for your very first client, alright? This is going to be a special occasion for you."

"Okay, sure, why the hell not." His brain was already forming a plan of escape. He could get out of this godforsaken office and pretend he was sick, and then Reagan wouldn't bother him again because by the time they met again, well, the trial would have been over, and there would be no hard feelings. Yep. He wasn't gonna expose his delicate dignity to any murder trials just yet, thank you very much. Just before he took a bite of his pizza, however…

He sat ramrod straight. "Wait. How did you know I was eating pizza?!"

And then he saw Reagan Holt out his window, waving at him from across the street, inside the glass walls of a telephone booth.

All too suddenly, his appetite for pizza was swallowed by a sensation of puking. So this was how it felt like to be an adult.

There was no escaping it.

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